Warm Up Sets Explained: Best Strategies for Lifters

Warming up is not what most of us get excited about. But it’s a necessary part of a productive workout. 

Part of a good warm-up routine is the warm-up sets you do. So, let’s learn what they are, what benefits they offer, and how to add them to your training.

Key Takeaways

1. Warm-up sets are less challenging sets where you progressively increase the load until you reach your working weight.
   
   
2. Warm-up sets help further prepare your body, prime your nervous system, and give you extra practice time with the first lift of your workout.
   
   
3. Three to four warm-up sets are generally enough. It can look like this: empty bar (set 1), 50% of working weight (set 2), 75% of working weight (set 3), and 90% of working weight (set 4).
   
   
4. The consensus is to do a general warm-up (say five minutes of dynamic stretching or cardio) and proceed to the warm-up sets for the first exercise.
   
   
5. With Hevy, you can customize the warm-up calculator and add multiple warm-up sets to any exercise with two taps. Also, tap on regular sets and convert them to warm-up sets.

What Are Warm Up Sets and What is Their Purpose?

Warm-up sets are lighter sets done before the working sets of an exercise to prepare the muscles, joints, and nervous system. They help improve performance and reduce the injury risk. For example, if someone were to bench press 225 lbs for sets, they might do three warm-up sets with 45 lbs, 110 lbs, and 175 lbs.

First, by doing warm-up sets instead of jumping straight to your working weight, you target the specific muscles, joints, and connective tissues involved in the exercise. This helps mobilize and warm them up, reducing the risk of feeling stiff or experiencing nagging aches.

Similarly, it’s easier to spot aches or stiffness that may affect your performance by working up to heavier weights. As you warm up, discomfort may disappear, allowing you to train more productively. 

Alternatively, you might do some extra mobility work to prepare for your first exercise or swap it for another if the discomfort doesn’t go away on that particular movement.

Second, warm-up sets serve the essential purpose of greasing the groove by reinforcing proper movement patterns through repeated, low-effort practice. Thanks to warm-up sets, the nervous system engages the necessary motor pathways, which improves coordination, balance, and muscle activation.

Not doing warm-up sets can keep you stiff, uncomfortable, and less able to train through a full range of motion (at least early on in the workout), and it may even affect overall technique and muscle activation.

The warm-up calculator in the Hevy app allows you to configure your warm-up set structure based on percentages and add the pre-determined warm-up sets to any exercise. The exact weights for each warm-up set will depend on the working weight you select.

Warm Up Sets As Part of a Warm Up Routine

Warm-up sets are highly beneficial but do not constitute a complete warm-up. To get the most out of them, you must do them as part of a warm-up routine.

In weight training, you have two forms of warming up that make up this routine:

General Warm-up

This is the warm-up sequence you do to prepare your body, and it is typically the same regardless of what workout you’re about to do. The purpose of a general warm-up is to:

• Raise core body temperature
• Improve muscle elasticity
• Boost blood flow and circulation
• Improve joint mobility and reduce stiffness
• Warm up the synovial fluid that provides cushioning and lubrication for joints
• Engage the nervous system
• Help you get into the proper mindset for training

Here’s an example of how it might look:

• Five minutes of low-intensity steady-state cardio, such as incline treadmill walking
• Full-body dynamic stretching routine: front-to-back and side-to-side leg swings, arm circles, torso twists, shoulder rolls, cat-cow stretches, walking lunges, and hip circles

The entire sequence should not take more than ten minutes. Of course, you can add more activities, such as foam rolling, static stretching, or an additional dynamic stretch for a stiffer area.

The purpose is to feel better, focus on your workout, move more freely, and jump into the next portion of your session with energy and vigor.

Some people don’t want to do any cardio before their workout, and that’s also fine, especially when it’s warm, and you’re already a bit sweaty by the time you get to the gym. A few minutes of light cardio can be particularly beneficial if you train in a colder environment (say, your garage during winter) or you work out in the morning.

Specific Warm-Up

The specific warm-up is where you’re more mindful about what you do to prepare your body for the particular training you’ll be doing––be it a leg workout, chest day, or something else.

Once you’ve done the general warm-up, you can do the following:

• A mobility drill that helps with the first exercise of the workout – for example, this can consist of deep bodyweight squats and hip openers before squats, wall slides and band shoulder dislocations before presses, or hip flexor and adductor stretches and cat-cow stretches before deadlifts.
  
  
• Activation work with light free weights or resistance bands to help improve the mind-muscle connection with areas you struggle to feel during training. For example, if you’re doing bent-over barbell rows as a first exercise, you could lat do light pulls to engage these muscles.
  
  Similarly, you may do some glute activation exercises like bodyweight glute kickbacks and lateral band walks before hip thrusts.
  
  
• Warmup sets, where you start with a light weight (say, just the bar) and gradually increase the load until you reach your working weight.

Remember that warm-up routines don’t need to be unnecessarily complicated. It doesn’t hurt to take extra time to prepare, but try to be efficient and only do enough to warm up and train hard without stiffness, discomfort, or pain.

Everyone has different needs, and there isn’t a scientific consensus on the best warm-up protocol (since there is likely no one best approach for everyone). I highly recommend this narrative review by Neves et al. if you want to read more about warm-ups and their importance.

How to Do Warm Up Sets Correctly

Here is a good blueprint to follow:

1. Start with an empty bar, a pair of dumbbells, or a gym machine weight you can comfortably lift for 15-20 reps. Do the reps slowly and with good control through a full range of motion. Try to engage the target muscles instead of simply going through the motions.
   
   
2. Then, bump the load to around 50% of your working weight and do 5-6 reps with good control through a full range of motion. If you plan to lift 225 lbs, do that set with around 110 lbs.
   
   
3. For your third set, bump the weight to around 75% and do three solid reps. This would mean lifting around 170 lbs if your working weight is 225 lbs.
   
   
4. Optionally, do a final warm-up set with around 90% of your working weight for a single if you need more preparation before jumping into your work sets. This would be a single with around 200 lbs.
   
   
5. Do your first working weight with 225 lbs.

As for rest time between warm-up sets, keep it to 45-60 seconds maximum, or enough to get the weight plates, grab the heavier dumbbells, or adjust the weight on the gym machine. 

Since the goal is to stay far from muscle failure, you won’t need as long rest breaks to feel ready for each upcoming set. Here’s how it looks in a table:

Hevy’s warm-up set calculator has a default formula: 40% for 5 reps, 60% for 5 reps, and 80% for 3 reps. You can stick to it or adjust the percentages, the reps per set, and the number of sets.

Then, when it’s time to train, tap the three dots next to the first exercise, select Add Warm Up Sets, log the target weight at the top, and the app will calculate the load for all warm-up sets automatically.

You can also tap on any set to change its type to warm-up.

How to Adjust the Warm-Up Set Formula For Yourself

The above is a great starting point, but the formula is not set in stone. Here are some factors that determine how you should approach warm-up sets and why they could differ from the above tips:

• You can do additional warm-up sets if you have particularly tight or previously injured areas. For example, let’s say you hurt your left hip in the past, and the area feels tight at the start of each workout. In such a case, you can do two empty bar sets and three sets where you gradually increase the resistance to prepare for squats, deadlifts, and similar exercises.
  
  
• If you’re stronger and you lift heavier weights (say, 300+ lbs), you may need to do more warm-up sets to keep the weight jumps smaller. For example, if you deadlift 365 lbs, you might do five warm-up sets: 135 x 10, 205 x 5, 265 x3, 295 x1, and 315 lbs x1.
  
  In contrast, if you’re new to weight training and lift lighter weights (say, around 135-155 lbs maximum), you could do just two or three warm-up sets. For instance, if you bench 135 lbs, you could do a warm-up set with 45 lbs (empty bar) and one with 95 lbs before jumping into your work sets.
  
  
• Depending on the exercise’s complexity, you might need more or fewer sets. For example, multiple warm-up sets can grease the groove and help improve muscle activation, coordination, and balance for a more complex lift like the low-bar back squat.
  
  In comparison, machine-based lifts like the leg press, chest press, and shoulder press might not need as much preparation simply because they aren’t as technical and don’t require the same balance, coordination, and focus.
  
  
• The rep range you train in also plays a role. The more reps you do, the lighter the weight, so you can get away with fewer warm-up sets. In contrast, the more strength-focused work you do in lower rep ranges like 3-5 or 4-6, the heavier the weight will be, forcing you to do more warm-up sets.
  
  
• Lastly, personal preference also plays a role. If you don’t mind taking a bit longer to warm up and you feel like an extra warm-up set or two makes a difference in how comfortable you feel and how heavy you can go, by all means, take your time.

Do I Need Warm Up Sets For Every Exercise?

In general, you only need to do warm-up sets for the first exercise of your workout, especially if you follow a bro or push/pull/legs split where each session revolves around one to three muscles and movement patterns. 

Take this push workout as an example:

You only need to do some warm-up sets for the first movement. So long as you do a general warm-up and increase the weight over several sets, your body will be prepared to handle the rest of the workout. 

You can throw a warm-up set here and there if you feel like you need it, but it’s generally unnecessary and will only waste your time and energy. 

An exception here would be if you’re doing an upper/lower split or full-body workout where the first and second exercises target different muscles. For example, here is an upper-body workout from an upper-body program (taken from the Hevy app’s free routine library):

Here, you can do warm-up sets for the barbell bench press and the row. This is because the two exercises involve different patterns (push and pull) and target opposing muscle groups. 

Now, here’s a full-body workout where you might do even more warmup sets:

You have a barbell row as the first movement but a leg press as the second. Given how unrelated the two are, doing some warm-up sets for both makes sense. Also, since the third movement is unrelated to the first two, you can do one or two warm-up sets of chest presses, especially if you’re more advanced and use a lot of weight.

Here is how it might look for the first three exercises of a different full-body workout:

Warm Up Sets for Bodyweight Exercises

Let’s say you do bodyweight training (the Hevy app’s free routine library has four equipment-free options for all levels), or you’re doing a bodyweight exercise first in some workouts––for example, pull-ups on back/pull day and dips on chest/push day.

Here are several good options to do warm-up sets without relying on percentages:

• Do an easier variation – for example, if you’re doing pike or decline push-ups as your first exercise, do two or three warm-up sets of classic or incline push-ups.
  
  
• Do assisted reps – for instance, let’s say you’re doing pull-ups as the first movement. You can do band- or machine-assisted pull-ups to target the same muscles while controlling the resistance.
  
  
• Do eccentrics only – another simple option is to focus on the eccentric for a few reps, making sure to be far from failure. For example, step on a box or jump up to get to the top of a pull-up and lower yourself over five seconds. Do three sets of three reps and proceed to your first work set.
  
  
• Low reps, multiple sets – lastly, a practical option is to do the exercise in its original form but only for two to five reps. You can do three to five warmup sets and rest for up to a minute between them.

Can You Warm Up Only With Progressively Heavier Sets?

Let’s say you find general warm-ups like dynamic stretching or cardio boring. Or perhaps you’re pressed for time and would like to save a few minutes if possible. Does it make sense to jump straight into your warm-up sets?

In the narrative review mentioned above, the authors found a significant positive impact of warming up on performance: total volume and strength output. Here is a quote from their findings:

“These positive results were either after using only a specific warm-up or using a general warm-up followed by a specific warm-up.”

Also:

“The increased strength outcomes seemed to be better when a higher load is used during warm-up, with few repetitions. Moreover, the use of a general warm-up showed to be beneficial in some specific assessments.”

In one of the studies from the review, researchers noted better leg press performance in subjects doing a general and specific warm-up compared to just a specific warm-up. A different study from the review showed no difference in muscle strength regardless of whether the subjects did a general, specific, or stretch-based warm-up.

A third study from the narrative review found that a long-duration, low-intensity general warm-up improves 1RM strength in trained individuals. Finally, this study found that running-based and strength-based warm-up protocols lead to similar knee extension force output.

So, it’s hard to say, but current findings suggest that a general warm-up combined with a specific warm-up tends to work best. That said, it’s worth noting that a specific warm-up can also serve to prepare your body as a whole and bring the same benefits:

• Raise heart rate and core body temperature
• Improve circulation
• Warm up the muscles, joints, and connective tissues
• Improve mobility and limit stiffness
• Help wake up your nervous system and prime you for training

The advantage is that your warm-up would be more specific and allow you to get more practice with the first movement of your workout. 

However, this would mean doing more warm-up sets to compensate for the lack of a general warm-up, which could generate more fatigue in the involved muscles, affecting your performance on your working sets. 

So, it’s probably best to do at least a brief general warm-up––for instance, three minutes of brisk walking on the treadmill. Once your heart rate goes up, start your specific warm-up and see how well such a minimalistic approach works for you.

Warm Up Set Mistakes to Avoid

Before we wrap up, let’s look at some of the most common mistakes related explicitly to warmup sets:

• Not doing them – given that some studies don’t show additional performance benefits from a specific warm-up, it can be tempting to cut it out to save time.
  
  However, remember that even if you do a general warm-up, specific muscles and joints will likely need extra attention to be fully prepared to handle the weights, especially if you train for strength.
  
  Plus, the specific warm-up also helps prime your nervous system.
  
  
• Doing too many of them – on the other end of the spectrum, we have people who go all in just to be safe. The problem is that warmup sets don’t move the needle, and doing too many of them can generate muscle fatigue and waste time, distracting you from your actual work sets.

• Doing too many reps – similar to the previous mistake, doing too many reps will generate muscle fatigue, affecting your performance on your heavy work sets. Follow our tips from above and keep your reps between 1 and 5, with the only exception being the first set, where you can go up to 15-20 reps so long as you’re far from failure.

• Ignoring proper form and tempo – just because it’s a warmup set with a weight you can comfortably handle doesn’t mean you should go through the motions. Remember that these sets serve a purpose, so be mindful of your technique, range of motion, and tempo to get the most out of them.
  
  
• Resting too long – as mentioned above, you should rest for around 45-60 seconds between warmup sets. This will help you gain momentum and stay focused as you ramp up the intensity. 
  
  
• Ignoring pain or discomfort – part of the reason to do warmup sets is to see how your body feels that day. So, if you experience any discomfort, don’t ignore it. See how it goes as you increase the weight, and consider swapping the exercise if the pain increases as you get close to your first work set.
  
  
• Counting warmup sets toward your total volume – the idea behind such sets is to prepare your body, not to create a strong enough stimulus for growth and strength gains. So, it doesn’t make sense to count these sets toward your weekly volume. Read more about optimal volume in our guide.

Conclusion

Warmup sets effectively prepare your body for any workout and are crucial to a warm-up routine. When done correctly, they further prepare your body by engaging the correct muscles, activating your nervous system, and helping you alleviate minor aches and discomfort you may feel early on.

Download the Hevy app if you’re looking for a simple tool to log any workout, add warmup sets to any exercise with two taps, and enjoy other features like RPE tracking, automatic rest timers, and tracking your performance on specific exercises. (Read about all of the app’s features here.)

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FAQ

1. How are warmup sets different from a general warm-up?

Warmup sets are part of the specific warm-up routine that helps prepare your body for the movements you’ll be doing that day. In contrast, a general warm-up is typically the same for every workout and mainly serves to get you moving and raise your core body temperature.

2. How do warmup sets improve performance?

They help you gradually work up to your working weight, which helps engage the nervous system in a specific way and improve muscle activation, balance, and mobility.

3. How many warmup sets should I do?

Generally, three to four warm-up sets are enough. You can go from an empty bar to 50%, 75%, and 90% of your working weight. If you’re a beginner lifting lighter weights (say, around 135 lbs), you can do just two warmup sets.